Category: Lon-don

London is so the hub of the world food thing at the moment. Everywhere you look there are places to eat. So it must be. And with Valentines Day coming up now’s the time to be treating someone you love – or admire, or want to have carnal squidgy with – by taking them out and watching them eat.

So join me for my weekly [you’ll be lucky – Ed] round-up of places to eat as I gather together all the places to eat and be taken out to dinner. I’m generally free on Thursday evenings. And if you’re reading this Kyle, feel free to you know, just call me, or return my calls or whatever. It’s polite, okay.

So here it is – my round up of the best places to eat in London for Valentines day or not.

One of the most vibrant cities in the Southeast of England on the Thames Estuary. Whether you’re just here for the day, or tied to a life of toil and drudgery by actually living here, we’ve come together to pull together the best places to visit and sites to see!

London is England’s Capital and there are all kinds of Capital attractions here for the visitor and the resident alike. Here are some of our top picks. And if you go by bike there’s a discount on all travel in fact its free.

1. The London Eye. You’re watching it. It’s looking back at you. Freaky and unnerving. Get there by cycle route CS1.

2. The Houses of Big Ben. Technically Big Ben is the bell or whatever. You’d recognise it. It’s where the MP’s live. Bike parking is underground and requires a pre-arranged cabinet position.

3. Buckingham the Palace. Built in the something-hundreds, Buckingham Palace is a huge draw for tourists all round the world hoping to get a glimpse of the Queen but she’s not that stupid. Buy a ticket and enter a prize draw to get a glimpse of one of her shoes. Or hide in one of the cupboards hoping to surprise her. Cycling not permitted in the corridors.

4. Old Street Roundabout. No explanation necessary. Try this for a challenging cycle during rush hour.

5.Oxford Street. For the ultimate shopping and bumping into people experience. Cycling is only permitted on the escalators and a helmet is advised.

6. Tower Hamlets Community Centre. I’ve done it. We’ve all done it. So should you. Front wheel replacement and new recycled bike locks can be purchased from No. 24. If the dog is barking just come back later.

7. The Italian Embassy. Necessary for all visas and permits to work. Best visited with an Italian who needs to tackle an issue relating to their conditions of entry. Guided tour not available. Ask the receptionist for your free I Love Berlusconi Handlebar neon effect face mask.

8. Madame Toussauds! Have they made a wax work of you yet? Not likely, you nobody. Why not try to get a finger up a waxy effigy of your favourite celeb. Don’t forget to sign the petition.

9. The Toliet. No visit would be complete without one. Men only in the men’s please. Costs vary. No bikes.

10. St Paul’s Cathedral and Tube Station. Don’t get them mixed up! Lighting a candle in the tube is dangerous and illegal. Seriously. Boris bikes are available for cycling the gallery but need to be carried from street level.

11. And many more! Harrods! Sports Direct, Brixton! The Natural History Museum Dinosaur bit! The Olympic park! Dog shit! And of course Brian’s Bikes! Where you come first! – if you’ve booked.

As I slide gaily through London’s bright and vibrant streets I am often struck by the variety of transport available, and cyclists. While I’ve nothing against cyclists they are very shiny, and largely frictionless which can be disconcerting.

But there are lots of ways to get around in this city. My personal favourite is the Tube.

The tube can be a wondrous place, where all of humanity is bundled together like toys in a toy box. Where the toys are all slightly nervous of each other. It’s a great place for smiling at girls. Girls love to be smiled at.

Also there are free newspapers and if you are feeling adventurous, free sips of coffee and discarded juice. I mean I don’t but I could. If I was hungry, you know.

Pricing varies, but the tube can be the most expensive form of transport in London, and if you have to actually do anything other than walk about and breathe, it can get pricey quickly.

Below is a tube map of places that are accessible by tube if you have less than £20 to spend a day.

This is here is some map of the tube for under £20 a day.

Alternatively you can get a bus:

This bus is nearly empty. I would like to sing to her.

Buses are red and go everywhere, and are cheap, and are easy to get on. Here is Lineaus simple guide to getting on bussses.

Find a bus stop and wait

Get on the bus.

Pretty easy huh?

And girls like buses too. I always have my guitar with me so I like to play some songs to amuse fellow passengers. At the moment my favourites are

You’re Beautiful by James Blunt

Anything by Jack Johnson

sometime I just find humming can be appealing.

If you are going by bus don’t stand on the upper deck or stairs. They don’t like it and the driver will throw you off.

The Docklands Light Railway is also handy for getting around out east but it is a bit like being driven by a drunk.

There are also cars but you must pay the congestion charge and have a car, both of which are pricey and not an option for the casual traveller. Also you have to have a licence apparently.

And there are also Boris bikes which are a very easy way of getting around. You will need to have a chip in your arm implanted in order to release one. There is a man at the edge of Hyde Park who will do this for you for money using an unsterilised penknife but I haven’t yet. Let me know if you have. If you are a good cyclist then maybe this is for you but please remember that the bikes willoperate two levels below your own ability.

Where the boats live.

Oh and boats but I get sea-sick and there are not so many girls on the riverboats but maybe in another post I will explore this.

Finally there is the unusual option of hiring a crane to get around. I found this a very good way of transporting lots of heavy stuff, but I didn’t travel very far and it wasn’t worth the being shouted at by men in hard hats and being arrested.

A crane. This is a last ditch travel arrangement and requires a degree of manual skill

So I hope that has been helpful and inspired you to explore this beautiful city in whatever way you would like to. Here is a picture that I took, just walking around. I hope you like it as much as I like it.

Look at all the red cars in the background!

Please let me know if there are other transports I haven’t considered. Or if you are a girl.

With Spring nudging its green shoots of recovery through the cracked, grit scattered, dog excrement smeared pavement of the world fashion scene (last winter was not good for me), now is the perfect time to be stocking up your wardrobe on this season’s latest fashion outings.

High fashion is all about seeing and being seen but it can be an expensive business!

Where else but in clothing would you feel obliged to throw out a perfectly good functioning and expensive object and replace it with a different perfectly expensive possibly less practical object simply because someone who spends all their day drinking champagne and telling rich people they look amazing and who has pages and pages of highly glossy, terrible-for-the-environment heavyweight print to publish each week while exploiting often poorly paid girls who are under constant pressure to look medically critically thin just so they can kick of their Guiseppe Zanotti Coleen high heels at the end of the day and feel like they’ve risen above their silver spoon pre-paid un-earned existence and achieved something with their pointlessly privileged lives tells you, to at your expense, for the advice? Only in fashion that’s what.

And we can’t all afford to change our wardrobe when we work for next to nothing so to help ease the pain I’ve drawn together some handy hints on how to get more out of your budget when it comes to fashion with my guide to Fashion on a Budget.

Winter into Spring

Something about spring? Flowers = spring no?

Winter was all about dark brooding hues with splashes of bright colours and long nights waiting for your friends in sleazy bars and wasting all your best outfits when they’d ditched you out for their new “boyfriends” and anyway we don’t all have to do the same things all the time do we? So time to move on. Besides it was all hidden safely under bog standard off-the-peg-duffel coats. But this Spring it’s all about vibrant patterns and clashing fabric choices.

Clashing Patterns

Proper fashion can come in at eye-watering prices. Try taking two old patterned shirts and cutting them in half down the middle. Gaffer tape the back and button together or glue together with epoxy resin at the front. The more clashing the patterns the more likely you are to turn heads and cause epileptic seizures. Why not try more than two shirts – or simply pull a patchwork quilt over your head and cut two holes for the arms and an optional one for your head depending on how gorgeous you are. Accessorise with strings of scissors round your neck and sellotape tassels.

Bedouin Chic and Flamenco Bedwear

They’re all wearing pyjamas. So should you.

Spring is also about flounce and flair with bold stripes and a middle-eastern bedouin feel. Pack lightweight trouser pockets full of sand to give that genuine – just out the desert feel or explosives.

Be sure to check you have paid for both halves.

Flamenco bedwear is also hot this Spring. so jazz up an old nightdress with fake plastic black roses and a healthy dollop of fresh bull’s blood. Alternatively tone down your flamenco outfit with a few Hello Kitty bobbles and a night cap.

Masculine smells.

Business fashion remains stable around dressing masculine to show the boys you can match them pound for ruddy pound. A pot belly and visible shirt tails is ideal for boardroom chic so aim for a badly ironed shirt and a tie with the knot done in the wrong place. A wedding ring looks good but make sure it can be slid off easily for those strip bar nights. Facial hair, including nasal, ear and extensive eyebrow hair can also add a touch of authentic class, as can going bald but hiding it. Add masculine smells by eating spicy food and swerving basic hygiene expectations.

The Great Wildness.

In the outdoor pursuit range an all-in-one Barbour (TM) onesy is highly desirable this year. Lacking any form of pockets or opening the fit can be tight and at times intimidating but for weather dependent activities it is second to none. Make this yourself by adding a single zip running along every edge and asking a dear friend to zip you in and check on you every few hours.

You can make things from curtains. If you can be bothered. It isn’t cheaper but less light gets in.

Finally in sportswear the flexibility and durability of the high-performance fabrics are second to none but they can be extremely pricey. If your commitment to a new fitness regime is highly dependent on having bought the right clothing, a simple towel held with a giant brightly coloured safety pin can be the most effective at mopping sweat, or a simple leotard adorned with stick-on day-glo buttons can give you that motion-capture athleticism and will make creating your self-promotional performance video where you morph into a dinosaur whilst base jumping off mountains much easier in the edit.

Love these shoes.

Finally a round up of the latest fashions wouldn’t be right without a discussion of shoes. It seems today the choice is all between comfort and fashion. Get round this simple trick by placing your favourite comfy shoes in a stolen Nicole Farhi box with plenty of wrapping, taking them into work then opening them in front of your colleagues. Voila comfortable shoes all day, while your colleagues marvel. Note any scuffs and simply tut and mention you’ll take them back. They will adore you.

That’s it from me. Hope there’s enough to keep you going this Spring and not naked.

BYeeee. Emily.

How to access your boiler refill. Emily. You were asking about this. I’m sure you were.

It’s time to root back through the annals of history to uncover the murky history of London. In this handy print-out-then-cut-out-and-keep-then-use-then-throw-away guide we take you on a brisk Lazy Planet Tour of the History of London.

Please note. As this is the Lazy Planet Guides we may ask you to forgive us some small inaccuracies that may have crept in.

London was founded in 85400 BC by DINOSAURS.

Evidence for this was uncovered in 1896 when eminent Victorian Scientist Billiard Jeremiah Slagheap first dug a hole in his garden in Hammersmith and, finding a hole the size of a DINOSAUR HOOF declared that dinosaurs must have roamed the land in HAMMERSMITH and therefore founded London.

Dinosaurs founded London in the Past

London was uninhabited until much later on in history, really until the ROMANS arrived.

The Romans, being very fond of living nice, decided that this small curve in the River Thames was the perfect spot for a trading post, a fort, a massive temple to some of the Gods they made up and some TOGAS. London was born. In AD54.

Detail of a Roman thingummy somewhere.

To the ROMANS London was a very popular trading spot where they would meet with people coming from the continent and tell them to go back to the Roman Empire which covered most of the continent. This tradition is commonly practised today.

The Romans brought many things to London including its regularly laid out streets, water, lions and war many of which can be seen on the streets of London today.

It’s easy to imagine how the locals were awed by the presence of so many men with swords who told them what to do. They left quite a legacy!

Then they left around 341 AD. Things were getting busy in the Empire at that time what with it collapsing and it was decided that keeping Britain or Britannicus as it was known was no longer a priority and anyway it was cold.

This is what London looked like when the Romans left

The leaving of the Romans left a sizeable gap and local tribes were allowed back into the area. These were made up of Angles and Saxons from Germany and were basically VIKINGS. They raided the coastal town of Londonwich which was today where the Strand is only less busy. After a few raids the Londonsfolk moved back into the walled city of London where there were walls, locked the door and no-one saw them for several centuries during which time they invented the congestion charge.

After the Vikings stopped being so violent and had explained they weren’t really raiders they’d just run out of space for their sheep, the Saxons begun to accept them. Suddenly a new threat appeared on the horizon when the Normans – who were essentially NORSE MEN and so VIKINGS started to eye up the land of the Angles who were DANISH or sort of and the VIKINGS who were from Sweden.

And so the battle of Hastings was born and in 1066 the Normans took over the country and began numbering the kings. They built the great big Tower of London to mark the event and opened it as a tourist attraction where you could watch beheadings for 10/6 as long as you didn’t eat the ravens or make fun of the beefeaters. This practice still continues today.

England was ruled by the Normans for years and London prospered where it grew around what is known as the City today. It remained the captial all through the WARS OF THE FLOWERS where two groups of Northerners the Lancastrians and the Yorks fought about who should be king and which was better the North or the South and within the North whether the West or the East was better. This is a tradition that continues today.

A map of London from the time of the Elizabethans who are not covered here for obvious reasons.

Well that’s all we could be bothered with. But then there was a bridge, a plague, some fire a new St Paul’s, a theatre, some bear fights, lots of georgian town houses, a parliament builidng, some sewage works, fog, a tube network, cars, the Blitz, a smattering of hideous 60’s high rise, bankers, and airport, Canary wharf, the Dome, a pointless cross-river cable car, congestion charge and a building that burns cars. But nothing is quite as interesting as the Romans or DINOSAURS

This is what it looks like now

Leave us a comment if you’d like to hear more and tell other people because unless you do I don’t get paid for this.

I have some leaflets that covers other things here so I could copy them out. But otherwise I hope you’ve enjoyed this brief introduction to THE HISTORY OF LONDON!
Thanks

Brian

Welcome

Hi, I’m James Marson, a writer based in South London. My novel, a sci-fi comedy, “The Colour of Robots” is available from Amazon now. Please check it out and some of my other blog posts….